Love Is Blind’s Chelsea Blackwell and Jimmy Presnell Just Went Head-to-Head on the Viall Files Podcast

Love Is Blind’s Chelsea Blackwell and Jimmy Presnell had one of the juiciest storylines on season 6 of the hit Netflix dating show, and after a reunion special that left us with more questions than answers, we’ve been dying to get some closure on the end of this relationship.

Enter Nick Viall, former Bachelor star and host of the The Viall Files podcast, who sat down with Blackwell and Presnell to get to the bottom of what went wrong, what wasn’t shown in the final edit of the show, and what happened after the cameras stopped rolling.

Here’s what we learned from the episode with Chelsea Blackwell and Jimmy Presnell, which was published on March 19.

Jimmy butt-dialed Chelsea, and got caught in his own lie.Presnell says that after his and Blackwell’s blowout fight over his relationship with one of his female friends, he was pretty checked out of his relationship with Blackwell. During this time, he told Blackwell that he needed space, and that he wanted to sleep at his own place. After Face-Timing her goodnight and telling her that he was going to bed, Presnell butt-dialed Blackwell. Over the phone, she could hear his friends laughing and discussing which bar they were headed to next. In other words, he wasn’t going to bed, and he’d lied to Blackwell.

So…yeah, maybe Blackwell had a reason to be insecure, especially toward the end of their relationship. When asked if he thought that Blackwell was justified in her insecurities, or if he believed that her insecurity was made out to be more than it was in real life through editing, Presnell said, “I didn’t view Chelsea as an insecure person in our relationship, I still don’t view her as an insecure person.”

Chelsea has apologized to Jimmy’s friend for outing their hookup.“I’ve apologized to her, I feel so sad that I brought her sex life into the world,” Blackwell said, referring to the moment she brought up Presnell’s sexual history on camera after promising she’d keep it between themselves. To this day, however, she maintains that it wasn’t the fact of Presnell’s close relationship with two women that was the problem, but a matter of respect. “It’s not even the fact that they had a relationship, it’s that I wasn’t getting the respect that I was giving him.”

She continued, “What bothers me is that there were zero boundaries, and there was zero respect…Where do we draw the line? Like you said, we’re trying to get married. If you’re not willing to take a step back, do I say ‘yes’ to you? Do I say ‘no’ to you? Are we going to be in couple’s therapy with her?”

Regarding her own ex, whom she called after she and Presnell got engaged following the pods, and whom Presnell has brought up frequently whenever his own co-ed friendships are brought up, Blackwell admitted, “I have a friendship with my ex-boyfriend so there’s no—I wasn’t trying to be a hypocrite. I respect Jimmy. I FaceTimed [my ex] when I got engaged because I was so excited for him to meet Jimmy. We have a good friendship. He’s married and has a baby…I’m not calling him, I’m not texting him.”

Jimmy took Chelsea to a baseball game date on the day that should have been their wedding.Presnell and Blackwell dated for four days after filming wrapped. As Blackwell explained, “He just said that the cameras were too much, the pressure was too much.”

“We tried for four days, it was the same,” she continued. “He made me dinner one night, he took me to my first baseball game, but nothing changed.” When pressed, Blackwell admitted that they did hook up during those four days.

As for whether or not they’d ever date again, or if they’re currently dating, Blackwell reiterated that they’re just friends. “I have been told ‘no’ multiple times from him so we do not need to do that again,” she said.

Jimmy clarified whether or not he would date AD.Presnell famously commented on AD Smith’s “stacked” body while in the Dominican Republic, and he’s since gone on to say that he admires her. When Viall asked point blank, “would you go on a date with her if she said yes?” Presnell replied, “I think there’s a lot of fish in the sea and out of respect to Chelsea, I think I should probably stay away from women that we did this show with that I dated already.”

They didn’t talk for six months after filming wrapped.Blackwell says that the two didn’t talk after filming wrapped until “I ran into him out and he asked me to go to coffee” six months later. “We talked about our whole journey and everything. I just thought—we both thought—he was going to have this horrible, horrible, horrible perception of him from the world because of how he was to me off-camera.”

She added that Presnell has been incredibly supportive in the weeks since the show has aired, especially as she has been dragged online.

Both Chelsea and Jimmy assumed Jimmy would be the one receiving the public’s ire—not Chelsea.“We had a lot of difficult moments that were not shown,” said Blackwell. “You guys don’t even see half of it, or why I was reacting a certain way. I was begging, and being super whiney and begging for attention from him was because I wasn’t getting that.”

Before the show aired, Blackwell assumed she would be “dragged” for staying with Presnell. “I was preparing myself, Ok, people are going to drag your ass for just not listening to the sounds and seeing the signs that ‘This guy did not like you.’… It just ended up being the complete opposite.”

Thankfully, Blackwell says, her fellow pod squad had her back. “All the girls and I are super close, and we were very, very, very close during the whole filming process, and they knew everything going on…They knew I felt a certain type of way, and they knew his actions weren’t matching his words. And he kept telling me ‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ and ‘I care for you, I want to fight for you,’ but it was like he was more concerned with his friendships.” Blackwell added that Presnell would feel jealous if the other men from the pods were hanging out without him. “You’re more concerned with spending time with your friends than with me,” she told Presnell.

Chelsea wanted to say more at the reunion, but says she didn’t have the chance.Thankfully, she’s getting her time now!